Literary Morons

Our regular somnambulist has met with a 'cat'astrophe ( you know sleepwalking can be really dangerous ). While he recuperates this is a feeble attempt at keeping the column alive. Let's all pray for his well-being.


Yesterday my friend came up to me with a peculiar problem. He wanted to gain admission into a management program that was touted as the best and which boasted of producing "exceptional" people; the problem was that they would only admit students who were "exceptional". So my poor friend had to miss out on his only opportunity to being exceptional because he wasn't already so!

Personally I think educational institutions should insist on admitting the dumbest of students and build geniuses out of them if they are really out to prove their own worth. Anyways what struck me about my friend's predicament was the oxymoronic situation he was in; and that led my thoughts onto other such juxtapositions of incongruous words in the English language.

My all time favourite is this profound piece of advice: "Always expect the unexpected". Well seriously, if you are already "expecting" the unexpected, it doesn't remain unexpected anymore! Right? :-)

Then again, there is that silly statement that inefficient people keep throwing around: "Almost done!". Hey! Who are you fooling? You are done when you are "done", there is no "almost". ( Sorry, I borrowed that from Yoda's "do or do not, there is no try" ).

Now from oxymoronic situations, to phrases, to finally words. Yep! I would call them oxymoronic words: like the word "she" contains the word "he" within it. Dr. Richard Lederer would call them "beheadments" ( like "t/here" ) and "kangaroo words" ( like "catacomb" containing the word "tomb" ). ( Look up Dr. Lederer's book "The Word Circus".)

And finally, combining all/some of them morons together, we have :
"If you think that you have "none", look closely and you'll find one"- now THAT is what I would call a great piece of advice!

-sumandatta